Words on word-images: An aspect of Dong Qichang's calligraphy criticism

The renowned scholar-official, painter, calligrapher, collector, arts theorist and critic, Dong Qichang (1555–1636), is regarded as the leading arbiter of refined taste in painting during the late Ming Dynasty. He participated in the highest stratum of the social and intellectual elite. His art has been accepted as ‘orthodox’, and his criticism regarded as the canon of the culturally dominant literati ideals for the early modern period. Critics and scholars since his time have also taken his criticism as the standard by which to judge Chinese painting generally. Paradoxically, however, he is known to have praised many emerging artists who painted in modes outside of what is today considered the standard literati domain, though this has received scant notice. Awareness of these contrasts prompts a re-reading of Dong's criticism, resulting in the discovery of his discussions on the importance of the new, the different — in a word — the original in creating a painting or calligraphy, and a rethinking of what constituted ‘literati values’ for the seventeenth century.